July 24, 2012

Any student of The Theory of Everything must master a whole new set of mathematical disciplines.

The most important of these was first recognized in the 1950's by Walt Kelly, creator of the cartoon Pogo who, with inspiration taken from The New Math debacle of the early post-Sputnik years, led us into a study of The After Math which describes what's left after everything else has been destroyed. The answer to every calculation is zero.

Later theoretical work by researchers who chose to remain anonymous (for obvious reasons) led to the following extremely important result, The Apathy Integral.

July 21, 2012

It does appear that the EV vehicles are able to be charged by Level 1, 2 or 3 charging stations. From the writers understanding Level 1 is a low rate, long charge time that is more of a backup when Level 2 or 3 are not available. In the EV that I test drove it was simply a 120Vac extension cord that had to be plugged to 120Vac circuit outlet protected by 20 amp circuit breaker. The vehicle had a 50 foot cord and was stored in trunk. The low rate charger was part of the vehicle.

In the test program in which I participated a Level 2 charger was installed in my garage and was powered by 240 Vac plus a neutral connection. Part of this garage installation was a recording wattmeter that measured the kWh taken during recharge---handy. Again the AC to DC conversion was in the charging circuit that was part of the cars electronics. The kWh rating of the vehicle pack was 22.6 kWh and the charging system required about 5 hours to completely recharge a fully discharged battery. The test vehicle could not be recharged by a Level 3 charger.

July 17, 2012

I've written before that my late father-in-law was a music teacher. I've also described how difficult it can be to be a teacher.

In going through his many leftover papers the other day, I came across this note, apparently written by one of his students. He'd saved it for lo these many years (decades?) and I can very easily see why.

How this situation resolved itself will never be known, but if you were in his place, how might you have handled it?

July 14, 2012

Information is coming in steadily concerning EV cars and information letting one calculate the CPM/MPGe performance. Listed below are several CPM/MPGe calculations for various EV cars. EV, means that they are electric only---not hybrid. First we have data on the Tesla Model S. The Model S will be available with 3 different battery sizes and hence Range values for each battery. The battery sizes are 40 kWh, 60 kWh and 85 kWh. The corresponding ranges are 160, 230, 300 miles respectively. Assumed electric cost, EP, is $0.13/kWk. Assumed gasoline cost, GP, is $3.50/ gallon.

July 12, 2012

Are you getting sick of receiving an endless stream of credit card solicitations? Would you like to make them stop coming? There is a web site where you are supposed to be able to do that, but take a look at what's there: To avail yourself of this "OptOut" service, you actually have to put your social security number on line.

July 10, 2012

Please study this picture for a little while and imagine that you are seeing a collection of rectangular solids as seen from above and having their top surfaces colored green. Stay with that thought for a little while before reading on below.

July 07, 2012

Art History is a dreaded but required subject for all college Art Majors, both at the Bachelor's level and at the Masters level. It is universally deemed in that field of endeavor, that one cannot be considered a true professional unless one has at least a passing knowledge of which artists and which cultures did what, when they did it and within what social and political circumstances.

It's not good enough just to be able to put some paint on a surface, to carve something up or to put pieces of heaven knows what together and hope for gallery exhibit space and/or accolades at some prestigious museum.

July 05, 2012

Sometimes, this trio of unpleasantries has been called the FUD factor. It's a psychological ploy to scare people into signing up for "insurance" against this or that adverse occurrence.

So far, I can recall this factor being pointed my way by the maker of my water heater to the effect that possible repairs need to be covered, by my local water company to the effect that pipes from the street leading into my house could possibly need repair and by my telephone company to the effect that the telephone wires inside my walls might possibly need repair.